31 would be the more distressing inasmuch as Atarbius, the bishop of that see, appears to have been Basil's kinsman. He was under the suspicion of Sabellian unsoundness. He slighted and slandered Basil on several apparently trivial pretexts, and on one occasion hastened from Nicopolis for gear of meeting him. He expressed objection to supposed novelties introduced into the Church of Caesarea, to the mode of psalmody practiced there, and to the encouragement of ascetic life. Basil did his utmost to win back the Neocaesareans from their heretical tendencies and to their old kindly sentiments towards himself.
The clergy of Pisidia and Pontus, where Eustathius had been specially successful in alienating the district of Dazimon, were personally visited and won back to communion. But Atarbius and the Neocaesareans were deaf to all appeal, and remained persistently irreconcilable. On his visiting the old home at Annesi, where his youngest brother Petrus was now residing, in 375, the Neocaesareans were thrown into a state of almost ludicrous panic. They fled as from a pursuing enemy. They accused Basil of seeking to win their regard and support from motives of the pettiest ambition, and twitted him with traveling into their neighborhood uninvited.
9. — Unbroken Friendships.
Brighter and happier intimacies were those formed with the older bishop of Samosata the Eusebius who, of all the many bearers of the name, most nearly realized its meaning, and with Basil's junior, Amphilochius of Iconium. With the former, Basil's relations were those of an affectionate son and of an enthusiastic admirer. The many miles that stretched between Caesarea and Samosata did not prevent these personal as well as epistolary communications. In 372 they were closely associated in the eager efforts of the epistolary communications. In 372 they were closely associated in the eager efforts of the orthodox bishops of the East to win the sympathy and active support of the West. In 374 Eusebius was exiled, with all the picturesque incidents so vividly describe by Theodoret. He traveled slowly from Samosata into Thrace, but does not seem to have met either Gregory or Basil on his way. Basil contrived to continue a correspondence with him in his banishment. It was more like that of young lovers than of elderly bishops. The friends deplore the hindrances to 32 conveyance, and are eager to assure one another that neither is guilty of forgetfulness.
The friendship with Amphilochius seems to have begun at the time when the young advocate accepted the invitation conveyed in the name of Heracleidas, his friend and repaired from Ozizala to Caesarea. The consequences were prompt and remarkable. Amphilochius, at this time between thirty and forty years of age, was soon ordained and consecrated, perhaps, like Ambrose of Milan and Eusebius of Caesarea, per saltum, to the important see of Iconium, recently vacated by the death of Faustinus. Henceforward the intercourse between the spiritual father and the spiritual son, both by letters and by visits, was constant. The first visit of Amphilochius to Basil, as bishop, probably at Easter 374, not only gratified the older prelate, but made a deep impression on the Church of Caesarea. But his visits were usually paid on September, at the time of the services in commemoration of the martyr Eupsychius. On the occasion of the first of them, in 374, the friends conversed together on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, now impugned by the Macedonians, and the result was the composition of the treatise De Spiritu Sancto. This was closely followed by the three famous canonical epistles, also addressed to Amphilochius. Indeed, so great was the affectionate confidence of the great administrator and theologian in his younger brother, that, when infirmities were closing round him, he asked Amphilochius to aid him in the administration of the archdiocese.
If we accept the explanation given of Letter CLXIX. in a note on a previous page, Gregory the elder, bishop of Nazianzus, must be numbered among those of Basil's correspondents letters to whom have been preserved. The whole episode referred to in that and in the two following letters is curiously illustrative of outbursts of fanaticism and folly which might have been expected to occur on Cappadocia in the fourth century, as well as in soberer regions in several other centuries when they have occurred. It has been clothed with fresh interest by the very vivid narrative of Professor Ramsay, and by the skill with which he uses the scanty morsels of evidence available to construct the theory which he holds about it. This theory is that the correspondence indicates a determined attempt on the part of the rigidly orthodox archbishop to crush proceedings which were really "only keeping up the customary ceremonial of a great religious 33 33 meeting," and, as such were winked at, if not approved of, by the bishop to whom the letter of remonstrance is addressed, and the presbyter who was Glycerius' superior. Valuable information is furnished by Professor Ramsay concerning the great annual festival in honor of Zeus of Venasa (or Venese), whose shrine was richly endowed, and the inscription discovered on a Cappadocian hill — top, "Great Zeus in heaven, be propitious to me." But the "evident sympathy" of the bishop and the presbyter is rather a strained inference from the extant letters; and the fact that in the days when paganism prevailed in Cappadocia Venasa was a great religious center, and the scene of rites in which women played an important part, is no conclusive proof that wild dances performed by an insubordinate deacon were tolerated, perhaps encouraged, because they represented a popular old pagan observance. Glycerius may have played the patriarch, without meaning to adopt, or travesty, the style of the former high priest of Zeus. Cappadocia was one of the most Christian districts of the empire long before Basil was appointed to the exarchate of Caesarea and of and endeavor to repress, any such manifestations as those which are described. That the bishop whom Basil addresses and the presbyter served by Glycerius should have the unseemly proceedings of Glycerius and his troupe as a pardonable, if not desirable survival of a picturesque national custom.
Among other bishops of the period with whom Basil communicated by letter are Abramius, or Abraham, of Batnae in Osrhoene, the illustrious Athanasius, and Ambrose, Athanasius of Ancyra; Barses of Edessa, who died in exile in Egypt; Elpidius, of some unknown see on the Levantine seaboard, who supported Basil in the controversy with Eustathius; the learned Epiphanius of Salamis; Meletius, the exiled bishop of Antioch; Patrophilus of Aegae; Petrus of Alexandria; Theodotus of Nicopolis, and Ascholius of Thessalonica.
Basil's correspondence was not, however, confined within the limits of clerical clanship. His extant letters to laymen, both distinguished and undistinguished, shew that he was in touch with the men of mark of his time and neighborhood, and that he found time to express an affectionate interest in the fortunes of his intimate friends.
34 Towards the later years of his life the archbishop's days were darkened not only by ill — health and anxiety, but by the death of some of his chief friends and allies. Athanasius died in 373, and so far as personal living influence went, there was an extinction of the Pharos not of Alexandria only, but of the world. It was no longer" Athanasius contra mundum, but "Mundus sine Athanasio." In 374 Gregory the elder died at Nazianzus, and the same year saw the banishment of Eusebius of Samosata to Thrace. In 375 died Theodotus of Nicopolis, and the succession of Fronto was a cause of deep sorrow.
At this time some short solace would come to the Catholics in the East in the synodical letter addressed to the Orientals of the important synod held in Illyria, under the authority of Valentinian. The letter which is extant is directed against the Macedonian heresy. The charge of conveying it to the East was given to the presbyter Elpidius. Valentinian sent with it a letter to the bishops of Asia in which prosecution is forbidden, though the letter runs in the names of Valentinian sent with it a letter to the bishops of Asia in which persecution is forbidden, and the excuse of submission to the reigning sovereign anticipated and condemned. Although the letter runs in the names of Valentinian, Valens, and Gratian, the western brother appears to condemn the eastern.
10. — Troubles Of The Closing Years.
The relief to the Catholic East was brief. The paroxysm of passion which caused Valentinian to break a blood — vessel, and ended his life, ended also the force of the imperial rescript, the Arians lifted their heads again. A council was held at Ancyra, in which the homoousion was condemned, and frivolous and vexatious charges were brought against Gregory of Nyssa. At Cyzicus a Semiarian synod blasphemed the Holy Spirit. Similar proceedings characterized a synod of Antioch at about the same time. Gregory of Nyssa having been prevented by illness from appearing before the synod of Ancyra, Eustathius and Demosthenes persisted in their efforts to wound Basil through his brother, and summoned a synod at Nyssa itself, where Gregory was condemned in his absence and deposed, he was not long afterwards banished. On the other hand the Catholic bishops were not inactive. Synods were held on their part, and at Iconium Amphilochius presided over a gathering at which Basil was perhaps 35 present himself, and where his treatise on the Holy Spirit was read and approved. The Illyrian Council was a result incommensurate with Basil's passionate entreaties for the help of the westerns. From the midst of the troubles which beset the Eastern Church Basil appealed, as he had appealed before, for the sympathy and active aid of the other half of the empire. He was bitterly chagrined at the failure of his entreaties for support, and began to suspect that the neglect he complained of was due to coldness and to pride. It has seemed to some that this coldness in the West was largely due to resentment at Basil's non — recognition of the supremacy of the Roman see. In truth the supremacy of the Roman see, as it has been understood in later times, was hardly in the horizon. No bishop of Rome had even been present at Nicaea, or at Sardica, where a certain right of appeal to his see was conceded. A bishop of Rome signed the Sirmian blasphemy. No bishop of Rome was present to save 'the world' from the lapse of Ariminum. Julian "might seem to have forgotten that there was such a city as Rome." The great intellectual Arian war was fought out without any claim of Rome to speak. Half a century after Basil's death great orientals were quite unconscious of this supremacy. At Chalcedon the measure of the growing claim is aptly typified by the wish of Paschasinus of Lilybaeum, one of the representatives of Leo, to be regarded as presiding, though he did not preside. The supremacy is hardly in view even at the last of the four great Councils.
In fact the appeal of Basil seems to have failed to elicit the response he desired, not so much from the independent tone of his letters, which was only in accordance with the recognized facts of the age, as from occidental suspicions of Basil's orthodoxy, and from the failure of men, who thought and wrote in Latin, to enter fully into the controversies conducted in a more subtle tongue. Basil had taken every precaution to ensure the conveyance of his letters by messengers of tact and discretion. He had deprecated the advocacy of so simple — minded and undiplomatic an ambassador as his brother Gregory. He had poured out his very soul in entreaty. But all was unavailing. He suffered, and he had to suffer unsupported by a human sympathy on which he thought he had a just claim.
It is of a piece with Basil's habitual silence on the general affairs of the empire that he should seem to be insensible of the shock caused by the 36 approach of the Goths in 378. A letter to Eusebius in exile in Thrace does shew at least a consciousness of a disturbed state of the country, and he is afraid of exposing his courier to needless danger by entrusting him with a present for his friend. But this is all. He may have written letters shewing an interest in the fortunes of the empire which have not been preserved. But his whole soul was absorbed in the cause of Catholic truth, and in the fate of the Church. His youth had been steeped in culture, but the work of his ripe manhood left no time for the literary amusement of the delettante. So it may be that the intense earnestness with which he said to himself, "This one thing I do," of his work as a shepherd of souls, and a fighter for the truth, and his knowledge that for the doing of this work his time was short, accounts for the absence form his correspondence of many a topic of more than contemporary interest. At all events, it is not difficult to decry that the turn in the stream of civil history was of vital moment to the cause which Basil held dear. The approach of the enemy was fraught with important consequences to the Church. The imperial attention was diverted from persecution of the Catholics to defense of the realm. Then came the disaster of Adrianople, and the terrible end of the unfortunate Valens. Gratian, a sensible lad, of Catholic sympathies, restored the exiled bishops, and Basil, in the few months of life yet left him, may have once more embraced his faithful friend Eusebius. The end drew rapidly near. Basil was only fifty, but he was an old man. Work, sickness, and trouble had worn him out. His health had never been good. A chronic liver complaint was a constant cause of distress and depression.
In 373 he had been at deaths door. Indeed, the news of his death was actually circulated, and bishops arrived at Caesarea with the probable object of arranging the succession. He had submitted to the treatment of a course of natural hot baths, but with small beneficial result. By 376, as he playfully reminds Amphilochius, he had lost all his teeth. At last the powerful mind and the fiery enthusiasm of duty were no longer able to stimulate the energies of the feeble frame.
The winter of 378-9 dealt the last blow, and with the first day of what, to us, is now the new year, the great spirit fled. Gregory, alas! was not at the bedside. But he has left us a narrative which bears the stamp of truth. For sometime the bystanders thought that the dying bishop had ceased to breathe. Then the old strength blazed out at the last. He spoke with vigor, 37 and even ordained some of the faithful who were with him. Then he lay once more feeble and evidently passing away. Crowds surrounded his residence, praying eagerly for his restoration to them, and willing to give their lives for his. With a few final words of advice and exhortation, he said: "Into thy hands I commend my spirit," and so ended.
The funeral was a scene of intense excitement and rapturous reverence. Crowds filled every open space, and every gallery and window; Jews and Pagans joined with Christians in lamentation, and the cries and groans of the agitated oriental multitude drowned the music of the hymns which were sung. The press was so great that several fatal accidents added to the universal gloom. Basil was buried in the "sepulchre of his fathers" — a phrase which may possibly mean in the ancestral tomb of his family at Caesarea.
So passed away a leader of men in whose case the epithet 'great' is no conventional compliment. He shared with his illustrious brother primate of Alexandria the honor of rallying the Catholic forces in the darkest days of the Arian depression. He was great as foremost champion of a great cause, great in contemporary and posthumous influence, great in industry and self — denial, great as a literary controversialist. The estimate formed of him by his contemporaries is expressed in the generous, if somewhat turgid, eloquence of the laudatory oration of the slighted Gregory of Nazianzus. Yet nothing in Gregory's eulogy goes beyond the expressions of the prelate who has seemed to some to be "the wisest and holiest man in the East in the succeeding century." Basil is described by the saintly and learned Theodoret in terms that might seem exaggerated when applied to any but his master, as the light not of Cappadocia only, but of the world. To Sophronius he is the "glory of the Church." To Isidore of Pelusium, he seems to speak as one inspired. To the Council of Chalcedon he is emphatically a minister of grace; to the second council of Nicaea a layer of the foundations of orthodoxy. His death lacks the splendid triumph of the martyrdoms of Polycarp and Cyprian. His life lacks the vivid incidents which make the adventures of Athanasius an enthralling romance. He does not attract the sympathy evoked by the unsophisticated simplicity of Gregory his friend or of Gregory his brother. There does not linger about his memory the close personal interest that binds humanity to Augustine, or the winning loyalty and tenderness that charm far off centuries into 38 affection for Theodoret. Sometimes he seems a hard, almost a sour man. Sometimes there is a jarring reminder of his jealousy for his own dignity. Evidently he was not a man who could be thwarted without a rupture of pleasant relations, or slighted with impunity. In any subordinate position he was not easy to get on with. But a man of a strong will, convinced that is a championing a righteous cause, will not hesitate to sacrifice, among other things, the amenities that come of amiable absence of self — assertion. To Basil, to assert himself was to assert the truth of Christ and occasionally, as in the famous dispute with Anthimus, so disastrously fatal to the typical friendship of the earlier manhood, he may have failed to perceive that the Catholic cause would not suffer from the existence of two metropolitans in Cappadocia. But the great archbishop could be an affectionate friend, thirsty for sympathy. And he was right in his estimate of his position. Broadly speaking, Basil, more powerfully than any contemporary official, worker, or writer in the Church, did represent and defend through all the populous provinces of the empire which stretched from the Balkans to the Mediterranean, form the Aegean to the Euphrates, the cause whose failure or success has been discerned, even by thinkers of no favorable predisposition, to have meant death or life to the Church. St. Basil is duly canonized in the grateful memory, no less than in the official bead — roll, of Christendom, and we may be permitted to regret that the existing of Calendar of the Anglican liturgy has not found room for so illustrious a Doctor in its somewhat niggard list. For the omission some amends have lately been made in the erection of a statue of the great archbishop of Caesarea under the dome of the Cathedral of St. Paul in London.
39 2. Works The extent works of St. Basil may be conveniently classified as follows: I. Dogmatic (i) Adversus Eunomium. Tlpoq E\>v6|xiov (ii) De Spiritu Sancto. Ilepi xcu ITv£\)JJ,octo<; II. Exegetic (i) In Hexaemeron. Ei<; xr|v 'E^ocrijxepov (ii) Homiliae on Psalms 1., 7., 14., 28., 29., 32., (iii) Commentary on Isaiah 1-16.
III. Ascetic. (i) Tractatus praevii.
(ii) Proaemium de Judicio Dei and De Fide. (iii) Moralia. Toe HGikoc (iv) Regulaefusius tractate.
"Opoi koctoc 7t^dxo<; and Regulce brevius tractate. "Opoi koct' e7tiTO(j,r|v IV. Homiletic. XXIV. Homilies (i) Dogmatic, (ii) Moral, (iii) Panegyric.
V. Letters. (i) Historic.
(ii) Dogmatic, (iii) Moral, (iv) Disciplinary.
(v) Consolatory, (vi) Commendatory.
(vii) Familiar.
VI. LlTURGIC.
I. (i) Against Eunomius. The work under this title comprises five books, the first three generally accepted as genuine, the last two sometimes regarded as doubtful. Gregory of Nazianzus, Jerome, and Theodoret all testify to Basil's having written against Eunomius, but do 40 not specify the number of books. Books IV. and V. are accepted by Bellarmine, Du Pin, Tillemont, and Ceillier, mainly on the authority of the edict of Justinian against the Three Chapters (Mansi ix., 552). the Council of Seville (Mansi x., 556) and the Council of Florence (Hardouin ix., 200). Maran (Vit. Bas. xliii.) speaks rather doubtfully. Bohringer describes them as of suspicious character, alike on grounds of style, and of their absence from some MSS. They may possibly be notes on the controversy in general, and not immediately directed against Eunomius. Fessler's conclusion is "Major tamen eruditorum pars eos etiam genuinos esse censetr The year 364 is assigned for the date of the publication of the three books. At that time Basil sent them with a few words of half ironical depreciation to Leontius the sophist. He was now about thirty — four years of age, and describes himself as hitherto inexperienced in such a kind of composition. Eunomius, like his illustrious opponent, was a Cappadocian. Emulous of the notoriety achieved by Aetius the Anomaean, and urged on by Secundus of Ptolemais, an intimate associate of Aetius, he went to Alexandria bout 356, and resided there for two years as Aetius' admiring pupil and secretary. In 358 he accompanied Aetius to Antioch, and took a prominent part in the assertion of the extreme doctrines which revolted the more moderate Semiarians. He was selected as the champion of the advanced blasphemers, made himself consequently obnoxious to Constantius, and was apprehended and relegated to Migde in Phrygia. At the same time Eudoxius withdrew for a while into Armenia, his native province, but ere long was restored to the favor of the fickle Constantius, and was appointed to the see of Constantinople in 359. Eunomius now was for overthrowing Aetius, and removing whatever obstacles stood between him and promotion, and, by the influence of Eudoxius, was nominated to the see of Cyzicus, vacant by the deposition of Eleusius. Here for a while he temporized, but ere long displayed his true sentiments. To answer for this he was summoned to Constantinople by Constantius, and, in his absence, condemned and deposed. Now he became more marked than ever in his assertion of the most extreme Arianism, and the advanced party were henceforward known under his name. The accession of Julian brought him back with the rest of the banished bishops, and he made Constantinople the center for the dissemination of his views.
41 Somewhere about this period he wrote the work entitled Apologeticus, in twenty — eight chapters, to which Basil replies. The title was at once a parody on the Apologies of defenders of the Faith, and, at the same time, a suggestion that his utterances were not spontaneous, but forced from him by attack. The work is printed in Fabricius, Bibl. Graec. viii. 262, and in the appendix to Migne's Basil. Pat. Gr. xxx. 837. It is a brief treatise, and occupies only about fifteen columns of Migne's edition. It professes to be a defense of the "simpler creed which is common to all Christians."
This creed is as follows: "We believe in one God, Father Almighty, of Whom are all things: and in one only — begotten Son of God, God the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, through Whom are all things: and in one Holy Spirit, the Comforter. But it is in reality like the extant Exposition of the Creed, a reading into this "simpler" creed, in itself orthodox and unobjectionable, of explanations which ran distinctly counter to the traditional and instinctive faith of the Church, and inevitably demanded corrective explanations and definitions.
In the creed of Eunomius the Son is God, and it is not I terms denied that He is of one substance with the Father. But in his doctrinal system there is a practical denial of the Creed; the Son may be styled God, but He is a creature, and therefore, in the strict sense of the term, not God at all, and, at best, a hero or demigod. The Father, unbegotten, stood alone and supreme; the very idea of "begotten" implied posteriority, inferiority, and unlikeness. Against this position Basil protests. The arguments of Eunomius, he urges, are tantamount to an adoption of what was probably an Arian formula, "We believe that ingenerateness is the essence of God," i.e., we believe that the Only — begotten is essentially unlike the Father. This word "unbegotten," of which Eunomius and his supporters make so much, what is its real value? Basil admits that it is apparently a convenient term for human intelligence to use; but, he urges, "It is nowhere to be found in Scripture; it is one of the main elements in the Arian blasphemy; it had better be left alone. The word 'Father.' implies all that is meant by 'Unbegotten' will not be preferred by us to that of Father, unless we wish to make ourselves wiser than the Savior, Who said, 'Go and baptize in the name' not of the Unbegotten, but 'of the Father.'" To the Eunomian contention that the word "Unbegotten" is no mere complimentary title, but required by the strictest necessity, in that it involves the confession of 42 what He is, Basil rejoins that it is only one of many negative terms applied to the Deity, none of which completely expresses the Divine Essence. "There exists no name which embraces the whole nature of God, and is sufficient to declare it; more names than one, and these of very various kinds, each in accordance with its own proper connotation, give a collective idea which may be dim indeed and poor when compared with the whole, but is enough for us." The word "unbegotten," like "immortal," "invisible," and the like, expresses only negation. "Yet essence is not one of the qualities which are absent, but signifies the very being of God: to reckon this in the same category as the non — existent is to the last degree unreasonable." Basil "would be quite ready to admit that the essence of God is unbegotten," but he objects to the statement that the essence and the unbegotten are identical. It is sometimes supposed that the Catholic theologians have been hair — splitters in the sphere of the inconceivable, and that heresy is the exponent of an amiable and reverent vagueness. In the Arian controversy it was Arius himself who dogmatically defined with his negative "There was when He was not," and Eunomius with his "The essence is the unbegotten." "What pride! What conceit!" exclaims Basil. "The idea of imagining that one has discovered the very essence of God most high! Assuredly in their magniloquence they quite throw into the shade even Him who said, T will exalt my throne above the stars.' It is not stars, it is not heaven, that they dare to assail. It is in the very essence of the God of all the world that they boast that they make their haunt. Let us question him as to where he acquired comprehension of this essence. Was it from the common notion that all men share? This does indeed suggest to us that there is a god, but not what God is. Was it from the teaching of the Spirit? What teaching? Where found? What says great David, to whom God revealed the hidden secrets of His wisdom? He distinctly asserts the unapproachableness of knowledge of Him in the words, 'Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high, I cannot attain unto it.' And Isaiah, who saw the glory of god, what does he tell us concerning the Divine Essence? In his prophecy about the Christ he says, 'Who shall declare His generation?' And what of Paul, the chosen vessel, in whom which it is not lawful to man to utter? What teaching has he given us of the essence of God? When Paul is investigating the special methods of the work of redemption he seems to grow dizzy before the mysterious maze which he is contemplating, and utters the well — known words, 'O the depth of the 43 riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments, and His ways past finding out! These things are beyond the r each even of those who have attained the measure of Paul's knowledge. What then is the conceit of those who announce that they know the essence of God! I should very much like to ask them what they have to say about the earth whereon they stand, and whereof they are born. What can they tell us of its 'essence'? If they can discourse without hesitation of the nature of lowly subjects which lie beneath our feet, we will believe them when they proffer opinions about things which transcend all human intelligence. What is the essence of the earth? How can it be comprehended? Let them tell us whether reason or sense has reached this point! If they say sense, by which of the senses is it comprehended? Sight? Sight perceives color. Touch? Touch distinguishes hard and soft, hot and cold, and the like; but no idiot would call any of these essence. I need not mention taste or smell, which apprehend respectively savor and scent. Hearing perceives sounds and voices, which have no affinity with earth. They must then say that they have found out the earth's essence by reason. What? In what part of Scripture? A tradition from what saint?